Pictured Rocks

We got an early start to the day with some hotel breakfast. We wanted to get on the road as early as possible because it was an hour drive from where we were staying in Marquette to Munising.

When we got there, our first stop was to see the popular Miners Castle. This destination offers two different lookouts: one offering views from afar, and another that actually takes you down to the formation itself. This spot was just okay. It's tough getting a good look at the Pictured Rocks when you are standing at the top of them. That said, we were very much looking forward to the boat tour we scheduled later that day.

A short drive away was Miner Falls. It's a 1.3 mile hike round trip and very easy to do. Once you get to the falls, a lot of people were hopping the fence and scaling down a steep decline to the base of the falls. Naturally, I decided to do the same in order to get a better look.

The view was pretty great, though the experience was kinda spoiled by an inconsiderate family that was dangerously climbing all around the the falls. That made it hard to get a good picture.

After our hiking, we decided to head into downtown Munising to grab a bite to eat. Despite being a tourist town, Munising really doesn't have a ton to offer when it comes to food and entertainment. Thankfully we ended up finding a food truck that served up some delicious BBQ.

After scarfing down some lunch we headed across the street to wait in line for boat tour of the Picture Rocks Lakeshore. Our tour was scheduled to depart at 2pm, but we got in line at 1pm in an attempt to secure a good seat. It's a good thing we got in line when we did because we still were about 50th in line, just making the cut off for getting a seat on the top deck (best seat in the house).

The tour was pretty awesome. Such great views of the rock formations from the water.

The boat tour was about 2 hours and it was very nice. We vowed that next time we would rent a pontoon and do our own Pictured Rocks tour. There really weren't that many people cruising around, just a couple boats and kayakers.

When we got back to shore we hit up East Channel Brewing Company for a quick beverage. After that, we had already tapped out on Munising and headed back to Marquette.

For dinner we wanted to eat the The Vierling. It is a restaurant/brewery in a historical building right in the heart of downtown Marquette. The hostess told us it was going to be a 1.5 hour wait, but we put our name in anyways because that seemed to be the trend elsewhere.

To kill some time we traveled off the beaten path and went to Drifa Brewery. This small brewery outside of downtown had a great outdoor space and it was open mic night.

Dinner at The Vierling was pretty good. Having waited so long, we were pretty hungry.

Once our bellies were full we called it a night, watched more Shark Tank, and drifted off to sleep.